Tantalizing Tapioca and Tender Coconut Conjuring Drink Recipe

Sattvic foods are light and easy to digest so one can take this natural and healthy food without any ritual believes or customs as a seasonal food when we do not want to eat much and now-a-days when we are leaning over a nutritionally rich and low-calories summer diet. In my family whenever we had a long-term dieting plan for any special occasion as a goal to trim slim we always preferred this meal plan without feeling deprived.

In Bengali culture there were some amazing food preparations for fasting rituals, which I think is very useful for tropical climatic regions. Items made from tropical rice cereals with yogurt - the doi chira [yogurt and flattened rice] or doi khoi [yogurt and popped rice] which is actually specially eaten on marriage or puja days known as dodhikarma or dodhimangal, another is jobber chaatu and muri [barley sattu and puffed rice] a special food item used to take on Chaitra Sankranti day, doodh sabu [pearl tapioca with milk, Bengali sandesh, and fruits] which is also a very popular dish specially made during fasting days like Navratri, Shravan, Mahashivratri, janmashtami or Ekadashi etc, chaal kola [soaked gobindobhog rice and banana] and gota mung dal makha on neel shasthi day [yellow mung mishmash with julienne ginger and lemon or yellow mung with scrapped coconut and seasonal fruits], sinni [unboiled milk, fruits, and wheat prasad] on Satyanarayan puja or on weekly Lakshmi puja day etc.

Here is one of the very traditional diet preparations for the busy summer days.

Sabu Makha Falahar

A complete planned breakfast for Summer diet with some Bengali sugar arts

Daber Sarbat - Green Coconut Malai Sorbet

Collect two tender green coconuts with soft meat (নেয়াপাতি ডাব). Remove the tender coconut meat with the help of a spoon off the shell of the coconut.
Take half of the coconut karnel, mix well with coconut water and chill. Before serving shake the water with crushed ice,
few drops of rose essence and lemon leaf for 4 to 5 minutes, After shaking remove the leaf, garnish with rest of the soft karnel and lemon or basil leaf, serve in chilled glasses [keep the empty glasses in the refrigerator for 10 to 15 minutes before serving]. Enjoy your summer morning breakfast
and stay light and cool through the day.

The combination of these two dishes will make your day, I promise.

Manohara Sweet Recipe

Image courtesy The famous "Manohara" sweet of Janai, Hoogly

In Bengal, there are two to three best sweet shops in every nook and crannies and uncountable varieties of famous Bengali sweets “Sandesh” are easily available. This recipe information is for them who used to miss the Bengali sweets every day.

Manohora Sandesh is a well-known sweet item of Saha sweet artisans of Beldanga, Murshidabad district, West Bengal. Manohara meaning Captivating, so it is a desirable sweet of Bengal.

Preparation - Boil one liter full cream milk in a hammered-steel heavy duty thick-bottomed pan like Paella Pan, simmer on low heat, do not stir the milk. After 5 to 6 minutes you can see a thin film on the milk, collect the film every time and store
it aside in the corner of the pan in a layer. In this way within one hour the milk will be reduced sufficiently and you will get about 100g of sar or sweet films of milk. Let the rest of the milk dry up on slow fire for another 20 minutes, now stir it occasionally, which is called kheer in Bengal..

Take this kheer and milk film layers, mix well, add dried rose petal and green cardamom powder. You can add half-crushed peanuts also and make small balls. You will get about 20 small balls from 1 liter milk.

Now make thick sugar syrup from 1 cup 250g sugar and half cup water. Bring it to boil, simmer it for 10 minutes. Put off the fire. Let it cool down slightly so that you can touch the syrup with your finger. Put the balls on a perforated ladle in a batch, dip the ladle with balls in to the syrup and take it out soon after that. Keep them on a plate separately, let them cool. The sugar-coated Manohara sweet will be ready to eat by then. The shape of the Manohora is round
and lower side will be flat.

Prep time: 00:10
| Cook time:
00:05
|
Total time: 00:15 | Yield: 2 servingsIngredients
Ingredients:
Thankuni pata/ Centella leaves, 2 bunches about 100 g Green chilies 2 Kalo jeera (onion seeds), 1 tsp Salt to taste Oil 1 tspA pinch of sugar to balance the tasteInstructions: Take the leaves from bunches (you can use whole leaves with stigma). Wash and clean thoroughly and keep in a big bowl of lukewarm water for 5 minutes. Take out leaves from water, do not strain, use your hand and remove leaves from water carefully.Though thankuni is usually not attacked by pets and diseases of serious nature, but this a small,…

Bhut chadurdoshi and Choddo Shak - 14 Greens ritualBhut chadurdoshi and Choddo Shak - 14 Greens ritual
Green Gaga
By Barnali Dutta,
published by Prasadam: October 22, 2014Tomorrow is Kali puja. On this day the Mother, the Goddess of Strength [Shakti], the source of all, the universal principle of energy, power or creativity is worshipped and this is also known as the famous Festival of Lights - Diwali. By Diwali I remember that in the market today, alongside large displays of fire crackers, lined up wicker baskets full of green herb is to be found too. In no time I had decided and amassed with lots of health arrived there. Truely, it is a rare opportunity to have so many rare edible green vegetables available in the market in Kolkata these days.

According to our forefathers this is the time at the end of the monsoons when people should start eating herbs in Bengal. I still wonder how much have we progressed or advanced or modernized from our forefathers. Man has left behind a wonde…